STANFORD UNIVERSITY 
STANFORD. CALIFORNIA 94305 
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 
(415) 497-2597 
December 10, 1979 
Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson, Director 
National Institutes of Health 
Bldg. 1, Room 124 
Bethesda, Maryland 20205 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson: 
I understand that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare 
has determined that an additional period of public comment is necessary 
before action can be taken on the proposed revised NIH Guidelines on 
recombinant DNA as expressed in the Federal Register for November 30, 1979. 
This letter is to indicate my wholehearted support of the revisions 
as stated. I am obviously speaking for myself, and as you know, I employ 
recombinant DNA techniques in my own research. However, let me also state 
that I have spoken on many occasions with my departmental colleagues who 
are concerned with population biology and ecology, and none of them has 
any doubt as to the correct wisdom of the changes proposed. These techniques 
are extremely important to the advancement of biomedical science and its 
application to medicine, and given the now acknowledged lack of danger, it 
behooves all of us to insure that the guidelines are changed sufficiently 
to allow more researchers to make use of these important and powerful 
techniques. 
eg 
Robert T. Schimke, M.D. 
Professor of Biology and Chairman 
of the Department of Biological Sciences 
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